This paper proposes a framework for designing digital environments and illustrates this framework using the example of a video game (Alchemist). The increasing importance of digital environments for educational systems (e.g. for teaching and assessing twenty-first century skills) makes it necessary to have standards for their quality. These…

We argue that students can understand an historical period by building on the foundations of their existing knowledge. Specifically, popular media can be used to develop students' historical literacies -- that is their ability to engage with past societies vastly different from their own. Our methodology takes inspiration from the ancient Romans'…

This essay explores the possibility that a particular type of video game--real-time strategy games--could have worrisome educational impacts. In order to make this case, I will develop a theoretical framework originally advanced by French social critic Paul Virilio. In two key texts, Speed and Politics (1977) and "The Aesthetics of…

This book illuminates the lived experience of a group of primary school children engaged in virtual world play during a year-long after-school club. Shaped by post-structuralist theory and New Literacy Studies, it outlines a playful, participatory and emergent methodological approach, referred to as 'rhizomic ethnography'. This 'hybrid' text uses…

Using national longitudinal data of students during their 9th and 11th grades, we address popular concerns over screen time activities distracting students' academic pursuits. We examine gender differences in the types of screen time use, expecting the skill-based activity of video gaming to be more common among boys and the socially oriented…

The authors provide a deep reading of the fictional small American town of Possum Springs in the 2017 adventure game "Night in the Woods" ("NiTW") to demonstrate how game architecture and environments have become richer and more complex spaces for narrative development and storytelling. The act of navigating the game's town,…

As online education for the MLIS becomes widespread, one challenge for reference and user services instructors is that traditional exercises used to promote clinical intuition and metacognition in reference work may be more difficult in online classrooms. This article uses concept analysis to better understand clinical judgment for reference,…

Reflecting on the question of media, this paper attempts to bridge the gap between attention and distraction in Bernard Stiegler and Walter Benjamin's respective philosophies. Based on Stiegler's philosophical theory, this paper will demonstrate, on the one hand, how harmful the destruction of attention, i.e. deficit hyperactivity disorder…

This article explores how principles of multimodality can be effectively incorporated into game analysis in the context of social justice. The authors use a multimodal framework to assist developers, researchers, and educators in better understanding representations of class, race, and gender in videogames. Videogames are multimodal in nature: not…

With the anticipated increase in narrative video games entering the English classroom, the particular features of the genre need added attention. One of these features is the stronger perceived relationship between a player and the character than a reader and a character. While this has benefits for effective storytelling, it also creates the…

Background: In recent years there has been a growing interest in potential pedagogical tools to be used in Physical Education (PE), and specifically in games. This has involved the exploration of both Gamification and Digital Video Games Approach (DVGA). Both are viable pedagogical tools for any teacher, and each have clearly different intentions…

Higher education (HE) faculty are increasingly teaching online. For many faculty, this represents a new instructional mode that comes with its own set of challenges but also with new instructional possibilities. One challenge is identifying innovative and effective active learning methods that academically engage online students. Along with other…

This paper presents data from the first six-months of an ongoing speculative design project in which youth and researchers co-created a videogame club, and later an eSports team, in an urban youth centre in Montréal, Québec. It describes how process philosophy informed researchers' approach to speculative design, allowing youth and researchers to…

In this paper, I intend to explore the role played by reflexivity in grounding a more critical perspective when designing, implementing and analysing participatory digital media research. To carry out this methodological reflection, I will present and discuss a recently concluded research project on young people's game-making in an after-school…

The effects of video games on self-esteem is an understudied area in social science research, despite the gaming industries massive economic growth and how widespread games have become in everyday lives. This paper explores and investigates literature on how playing video games could impact psychological well-being, specifically self-esteem.…